


dry your eyes

by cyrusbarrone



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Angst, Crying, Lots of Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrusbarrone/pseuds/cyrusbarrone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark was dead. He just had to accept that one of his best friends was gone and he'd never see him again; just left like something forgotten and uncared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dry your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> title from song dry your eyes by the street.
> 
> this was written fairly quickly and based off of this post: markwatney.co.vu/post/128673216159/spookystevies-is-an-asshole

Tears prickled the back of his eyes and he feared that if he were to blink wetness would form on his eyelashes and roll down his cheeks in rivets. Chris tried to ignore the burning and his wobbling lower lip- the lip of a child who’d broken their grandmother’s favourite plate- as they were shot off the face of Mars. His head was thrown side-to-side; he bare his teeth, and closed his eyes tightly despite the fact hot tears threatened to ruin his attempt at calm. He was glad to be a silent cry-er then, for the tears began to fall, betraying him, glad the crew couldn't hear him over their intercoms or see him through the turbulence of the MAV.

Mark was dead. He just had to accept that one of his best friends was gone and he'd never see him again; just left like something forgotten and uncared for. He'd never get to hear a lame joke again; never get to endure a talk on how awesome slime mould was; never get to see him doing reps in the fitness room. Gone. Dead. He'd confirmed it: there was no way Watney, or anyone, could survive the deflation of the suit. Chris daren't let his mind create the horrors that would happen to Watney on the face of Mars in his death. It was so final. 

Guilt was like a ball of lead in his gut. It was cold and intoxicating; flooding through his veins until everywhere ached with the guilt of not searching for longer... Everyone felt it, though, and Hermes was a miserable place to be. Commander wandered like a ghost searching for something; a painful sorrow in her eyes. Johanssen sunk back further into herself, sitting behind her screen and speaking less and less as time went on. Vogel and Martinez tried to act as though nothing had changed, but their humor was more subdued and dull without Mark ruining the punchline. 

Chris? Well, he was, physically, the worst. Where Commander Lewis wandered morosely about the ship, Chris began slipping in how he took care of himself. The necessities became less necessary; the gym was something he could skip and sleep was something he longed for but just could not quite reach.

Dreaming was an abstract concept now, for when he slept it was just darkness; the backs of his eyelids. The time where he lay in his bed with his hands stuffed under his head- fingers twisted in his own growing hair- tears would prickle at his eyes as he thought of how he never got to say 'I love you' to Mark. 

God, and wasn’t that the worst thing to be sad about? People were selfish in the way that when their loved ones died, they cared more for the repercussions to themselves. How Mark dying affected his life- he would never get to see that stupid half smile of his, never get to hear him say ‘I love you’ back. Concealing feelings, Chris decided, was a notion that did nobody any good. His heart hurt more for the fact he hadn’t got to admit how he felt than he supposed it would if either he hadn’t felt that way at all, or Mark had died knowing that he was loved by people other than his friends.

When he could no longer hide how he felt behind the blank smile, the comforting pat on Commander Lewis' shoulder, the hypocritical health lectures; he would spend the night sobbing. Great, wet and heaving breaths into his pillow until his eyes were red and swollen and he had grey tracks running down his cheeks in a vain hope that his mourning would return Mark from the dead. 

It was Alex that first approached him about his distance; his bloodshot eyes and constant refreshing of his coffee cup. Alex put his hand on his shoulder where he sat at the table, and pushed his hand into his long hair and ruffled it slightly. “Watney would not want you be like this, Chris,” he said in his brash accent. Chris looked up at him with his wide and tired eyes, fingers tapping on his coffee mug. “He’d want you smile.”

Chris tried to, but it just cracked his lips a little and a new bout of sadness welled over him. Vogel gave him a smile, before walking away. Chris took a sip of his coffee, and let the heat numb him.

-

When Commander Lewis called them all to watch an encrypted video from NASA he was wearing a sweater that had clung to Watney’s scent. He tucked his nose into the collar and twisted his hands in his sleeves and lumbered over to the screen. He stood towards the back and crossed his arms over his belly, watching the screen in the same silence that the rest of the crew did.

The screen was dark for a couple of seconds before broken images started to appear on the screen. They were black and white and looked like the surface of the planet they’d just left. The last picture flickered up on the screen and it said; ‘ARE YOU RECEIVING ME?’ and a sense of terror immediately thunked in his gut. Where the rest of the crew immediately erupted in happiness, Alex going ‘oh mein gott’, but Chirs just couldn’t rejoice with them. 

All he could feel was horror. He had made the call, he’d said that Mark was dead, it was his call that had resulted in him being left there. Chris swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, hands shaking a little bit in his sweater sleeves as the tears threatened once more. Mark was still alive and he’d been the nail in his fucking coffin- nobody survived being alone on a planet. 

He left the love of his life on another planet.

Chris sank to the ground and pulled his legs up to his chest with his hands shaking in their grip around his thighs. He pressed his forehead into his knees and gasped, panicking. His breath wasn’t steady and his vision was quickly becoming blurry, not only because of the uncontrollable tears that ran down his cheeks, but with the fact he could no longer see clearly. His shoulders shook against his will and the words his crewmates were saying to him didn’t translate to anything he could understand.

An arm wrapped around his shoulder and tried to talk him through his panic and, slowly, it began to work. When Commander asked if he was okay, he couldn’t speak properly, his tongue feeling like lead in his mouth and his words would be slurred and thick if he could speak. His arm lashed out to shove the Commander away and he began to rock back and forth, lungs constricting tight and quick and painful.

Only later, when he woke up in his bed, his throat sore and eyes itchy and red did he think; ‘fuck, I had a panic attack’. 

-

The mission to save Mark was a distraction. He was spending too much time going over their medical supplies, checking everyone would be okay to save Mark that he couldn’t get back to the dark space that he had been sucked into before.   
Mark became everyone’s priority and Chris could cope with that. They shared the same goal; Get him home. 

-

It was more emotional than he thought it would be when they got Mark back on Hermes. He did all the doctor things, not letting himself break down in emotion as he checked him over for injuries. It was methodical; the checking of his ribs and wrapping in stiff bandages. It made him feel like he was doing his job, that he wasn’t such an emotional mess. He felt like he was Chris Beck again.

That all went to shit when he wandered into Mark’s room and looked at him with wet emotional eyes. Mark was lying on his bed, head propped up like the doctor had prescribed and he opened his arms up and nodded him over. 

Chris coughed out a wet sob and walked over to him. He moved to lie next to him, and within seconds of carefully dropping his arm over his waist and pressing his face up against his neck, tears began to flood uncontrollably. His hands shook and his breaths were wet and heaving as his shoulders lost the weight that had been on them for the months they’d left him on Mars.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasped, hands sliding over his side. “Oh, god, Mark…”

Mark lifted a hand to run over his hair; smiling a little at the messy, greasy bun he had sitting on the top his head. He didn’t speak though, simply let Chris cough his tears against him, mutter his apologies and sob his forgiveness. 

What he didn’t know what that Mark had never blamed him. Not once.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and please tell me what you think!!
> 
> also find me on my tumblr docbossybeck.tumblr.com c:


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